A Scarecrow
by Dragonchad
Summary: Sometimes it really sucked to be in a world full of supernatural powers. Some things mesh strangely, and before you know it, you can’t even recognize your face in the mirror anymore.
1. Chapter One

Kakashi had his rare days, when he was off duty and he was absolutely aware of who was currently guarding the village walls, that he allowed himself to sink into his book with greater zeal than normal. After a while, when he finished a chapter or an extremely powerful scene, he would reacquaint himself with his surroundings. Just in case.

This time, he took a deep breath and sighed out his cheer at reading one of his favorite scenes. While Lord Jiraiya's books _were_ of an adult nature, he greatly appreciated the way the man would wax poetic on the beauty of perfectly average parts of a woman's beauty. The curvature of their jaw. The way one could smile in a way that was both mysterious and teasing.

His eyes flicked away from his book to take a breather, and he leaned back in his chair.

His finger twitched.

When he sat down, it wasn't in a chair. He hadn't sat in an office either, and he faintly recalled that he _had_ remembered to wear a mask that morning. What's more, he didn't have this exact shade of silver hair, and he definitely didn't use a cane as a weapon.

Or rather, not as his primary means of fighting, as the callouses on his hands suggested.

"Professor Ozpin, are you listening to me? You have to come give a speech in fifteen minutes." a woman announced, her voice echoing from a small electronic device.

"Huh." Kakashi hummed. "This is odd."

He smelled the air, which had all the telltale signs of his eyes and nose matching what reality was telling him, that he had somehow been juxtaposed into someone else's life.

"Ara ara. I think I'll blame Sasuke for this one. Naruto has the luck, but the Sharingan has a habit of messing with dimensions more than Naruto ever has. Plus I blamed Naruto for the paint last week."

His difficult decisions out of the way, Kakashi, or Ozpin apparently, made his way out of the office with his book in hand.

~_Line Break_~

The blonde woman gave him enough information that he could somewhat get a grip on what was important to know. Obviously he wasn't completely certain on the context of some words, but he got the jist well enough that he didn't particularly need to try and look for information.

"Anyway Headmaster, have you planned out your speech? You know that we can't have a repeat of last year's disa... where's your mug?"

Glen... Glanda? Glynder? The blonde woman had an expression that indicated her absolute confusion. Kakashi figured it was like seeing him without his book. "Sorry, I had to use it to fend off a black cat before it could cross my path." he said automatically.

This seemed to work, as... Minda? She just rolled her eyes and continued walking.

At least he wouldn't have to try too hard with these ones. It seemed that these 'hunters' and 'huntresses' were rather more like samurai than shinobi. Honor and all that. Very honest. Threats were just bandits and creatures, not usually other people at their level.

An errant photograph caught his eyes. Ah, her name was Glynda. That was probably relevant.

She took him to a room that was clearly the back end of a stage and gave him an inquiring look.

"Could you do the introduction?" Kakashi asked casually.

He received a world weary sigh that told him she had already expected that question before she nodded and stepped through the curtain.

The second she disappeared, he created a trio of shadow clones and sent them out. "Best be prepared." he murmured.

He heard a line that couldn't possibly be misconstrued as him _not _being asked to come say something, so he stepped through the curtain and into a spotlight.

There was a sea of teenagers, and they all looked at him expectantly.

This is what Kakashi lived for... this was his greatest gift. Disappointing people.

"You came to this school in hopes of furthering yourselves, of stepping forward into your future and learning all you'll need to bank on for your lives'. In truth, you will find these halls to be empty, and yourselves woefully unprepared. Life only gets more difficult, never less."

He abruptly turned and walked away.

"Damnit Headmaster, why do you have to act so pessimistic all the time." he heard Glynda mutter under her breath.

At least he still had his senses. It'd be a pain to have to figure everything out fresh. His chakra was a little off, so he'd need to fiddle, but he should have this in hand.

"Was there anything else, Glynda?" Kakashi asked.

She repressed a sigh. "No Ozpin. That was it. _Thanks_."

Kakashi ignored the sarcasm with long earned practice. "You're quite welcome Glynda. I'm glad I was of some assistance."

This time her sigh was audible, and he fended off a smile.


	2. Chapter Two

The next day, he found himself both filled with information on the general state of the world and being called to join Glynda in the combat exercise where the first year students would form teams.

He found the mug, or at least one of, that this Ozpin character must often drink from. He filled the mug with hot chocolate, given that he found plenty of mixes for the drink.

As he travelled to the cliff that he was supposed to go to, he considered the information he learned.

The main enemies of the world in general were a strange race of creatures known as Grimm. These creatures varied from almost completely harmless to almost a challenge. Rumors speculated that there may be a scant few that could actually be considered a threat, though they were unfounded at best.

Difficulty came in numbers, though that was most likely stemming from the fact that humanity's numbers were quite low, hardly bigger than two of the five Great Hidden Villages, despite having nearly twenty times the landmass.

He, or Ozpin, was actually one of the most important people in this world, with both impressive power and an outstanding reputation. He was apparently the headmaster of a school that trained fighters to defeat these Grimm and defend people, as well as someone with a high voice among that council for the kingdom he was in.

Kingdom being a term for a walled city/country, not actually a monarchy. The actual authority in the city was mostly a meritocracy based off of business and infrastructure, meaning that there was, for example, one man who had authority over all bread products in Vale. These people mostly had legislative powers, and the actual authority on them was based entirely on how much shit the average civilian would allow them to get away with. Laws were largely reactive, and Kakashi honestly decided it would only take one truly ambitious figure to topple the entire system.

Not that he was offering. Being a Kage for a few months was bad enough.

Alas, this was when Glynda managed to find him and nag him into going to the location of the preliminary exam.

He managed to delay just enough that he was later than most of the students, and he sipped from his mug. The few queries he had made here and there with disguised shadow clones told him enough about 'his' mannerisms to know that he was even more distant and enigmatic than he usually was, so Kakashi rebelled in putting a microscopic seal in the coffee cup to provide both heat and perpetual refills to the drink.

The expression as he sipped from the mug was priceless, especially as he saw the absolute befuddlement on Glynda's face as he continued to sip occasionally for a solid forty five minutes.

Just to disturb the children more, Kakashi checked the time by turning his coffee mug and pouring nearly two liters of hot chocolate onto the ground as he checked a watch. This had the added benefit of making Glynda wonder when he got said watch.

The last few students arrived and managed to line themselves up on the square pedestals that he was well sure were actually launch pads.

"There have been many rumors about how you will be acquiring partners and teams. Allow me to put them to rest. You will be-"

"AAAAAAAGH!" A student screamed as they were launched from the cliff side.

"Goddamnit Ozpin..." Glynda muttered.

"If anyone steps off their launch pad they are disqualified." Kakashi declared smoothly, hiding his amusement.

"The first person you make eye contact with upon hitting the ground is your partner. Your objective is to-"

Another student got launched, though she seemed much more capable of not screaming and panicking.

"Get the relics that are north of the forest!" Glynda rushed. "Then come back with a relic per pair!"

Kakashi saw a few more options that were obviously designed to subtly push certain partners towards being close.

A pad launched.

"AH! A bird?!"

Got it, Kakashi smirked subtly.

"Um? Mr. Ozpin, sir?" A timid teen asked aloud.

Kakashi gleefully launched another underage person towards a vicious man-killing bird.

"How are we going to get down uh... safely?" the kid continued.

"Safely?" Kakashi asked. He felt it had just the perfect amount of aloof befuddlement, like he was unconcerned and yet absolutely unaware of the term used.

"Are there like... parachutes? Or something?"

Kakashi's eyes widened. "Oh god. Glynda! Did you forget to give out the-!"

He launched the blond's launch pad. The glare he received from Ms. Goodwitch was almost as good as the panicked screaming from his wayward student who had almost felt hope.

It was so good, in fact, that Kakashi finished off the rest of the students by launching them all at once in the general direction of the forest. Sadly the launch pads did not have the capacity to launch backwards. That would have been a delight.

"Sometimes I really hate you, Headmaster." Glynda declared resignedly.

"Hmm? That's okay Glynda, I appreciate you as well."


	3. Chapter Three

Kakashi deliberated for many moments.

"Are you sure we can't name them Team Red and Team Overkill?"

"_Yes_ Ozpin. I'm sure." Glynda hissed diapprovingly.

"But the young one is definitely the only important one on the team. The others have that whole... drama thing."

Glynda sighed with a small growl. "Be that as it may, Headmaster, I-"

"Oh wait, I'll call them team RWBY. The 'W' replaces the 'U' and everyone will know who actually matters."

"... As long as you don't actually tell them that, Headmaster." Glynda relented.

"Team Overkill stays." Kakashi declared cheerfully.

"Why do you even want to call them that?" Glynda asked instead of starting another pointless argument.

"Easy. There is an unnaturally skilled girl that shyly lusts after the blond one, a silent stoic type that has excellent skill and mildly lacks power, a heavy hitter that finds fighting to be the most entertaining form of combat, and a stubborn blond teen with no clue and a propensity to be overly emotional."

Glynda blinked. To be fair, Kakashi and Ozpin were both known for a lack of words, so this was unusual. "Why would that mean that they are overkill?" She asked.

"Blonde will become stupidly strong in about six months, Redhead will prove to be emotionally invested in team and most likely provide stability, Stoic will be the voice of reason, and Hammer girl will be the blunt option."

Glynda hated when he said things like this, because she _wanted_ to refute them. He was usually correct.

"Whatever then. You can name the rest I guess, Glynda."

Then he walked away.

Given that they had about... five minutes until the teams were to be announced, Glynda was frustrated at both having to quickly name several teams, but also track down the wayward Headmaster.

~_Line Break_~

"Don't you dare make any faces when you announce the teams." Glynda warned with a scowl.

Kakashi had the perfect expression for this instance. He had to practice in the mirror to get the second eye to cooperate after he lost Obito's eye, but it worked out for him. It was an expression that said, 'Who? Me? Why would I do something like that?'

The biggest piece of it was forcing his mouth to look a little surprised and slightly upset, like he had no experience whatsoever at being blamed for something like what he was being blamed for.

This Ozpin was apparently less experienced than he, as Glynda actually looked genuinely worried that he was upset.

"Glynda? How could you accuse me of something as heinous as neglecting my one and only job? I spent years to get here... you think that my work stood for nothing?" He asked slowly, as if betrayed.

It did. Especially since he wasn't exactly the Ozpin that had actually took the job.

"Y... you're right Headmaster. I apologize." Glynda said stiffly, looking contrite.

Kakashi suppressed a frown. She was somewhat easily manipulated, but he felt that she should have ignored this one. His lies and acting were for peers, not for civilian mentalities.

This led to Kakashi wondering when the last time he spoke to a civilian was.

Wasn't the secretary to the Hokage's office usually a civilian? No... he remembered now. They were Anbu taking time off in the village. Usually in disguise.

Then Kakashi wondered if shadow clones counted or not. If they did, then it was the last time he went shopping. If it didn't... his last escort mission?

Scratch that, his last difficult escort mission.

That would've been... eight years? Ish?

... And now he'd been silently thinking for at least a minute.

"I think Team Overkill is aptly named, though." Kakashi remarked.

Glynda made a remarkable recovery, in that she composed herself and acted as if he made no remarks whatsoever.

"They will be Team Juniper." She declared stiffly.

"Like the birth control?" Kakashi asked.

Glynda immediately disliked the comparison. "No. Because they-"

"I like it. They probably won't fool around because of their personalities, so it'll be an inside joke between the two of us."

"That wasn't _quite_ what I had in mind..."

"It's perfect. I couldn't have picked a more demeaning name if I tried Glynda. Good work. Really. You've made me so proud." Kakashi declared, ignoring her objections as if she hadn't spoken.


	4. Chapter Four

"... will be Team Juniper." Kakashi announces, flashing a truly gleeful grin at his deputy. Her expression was resigned and upset in equal parts. There was a small smattering of applause for the new team, and Kakashi finished his declarations by quickly walking away without saying anything.

By now, the students had gotten just enough of his personality to be confused beyond the norm by his sudden expressiveness. This was further complicated by the somewhat more predictable effect, which was Goodwitch having to finish the announcements that Ozpin hadn't.

Of note was how the last team announced by the Headmaster decided to ask her about his reaction before they found their room, to which Goodwitch replied with a scowl and ignoring their question.

She eventually got everything settled and went to look for her employer, and god forbid her _closest friend_. She found him staring at the statue in the courtyard, looking surprisingly mature and serious.

"It is often admirable to look back on past achievements and mourn the losses that came from them. Would it have been better for them to have lived? Perhaps so, or perhaps it would have cost the victory."

"Insightful." Glynda commented, feeling a sort of nervous tension settle in her. When would the other shoe drop? Was he truly serious? Was he about to break the tension?

Inwardly, Kakashi smirked. Nervous wreck in three days. Not a bad record, but he's done better. Outwardly, he sipped from his mug and walked away, ignoring the noticeable twitching on Glynda's face.

~_Line Break_~

Kakashi found his way back to his ornate desk in an overly complicated clock tower and mused on his strange new world.

This process took about fifteen seconds before he started rifling through the drawers and searching for hidden buttons. To his delight, he found fifteen, one of which invildved solving a puzzle to identify himself as Ozpin that he expertly bluffed through.

"Wow, this guy kept a diary." Kakashi remarked, holding a dusty book. It looked more like a grimoire or a thesaurus in size, but it definitely held autobiographical information. "Guess it's time to do some self study."

He found a lot of unnecessary fluff. "Huh, this guy actually was that cryptic and not just messing with people." He noted.

In the end he found little of value. Some general end of the world spiel and an unkillable foe. Some garbage about summoning gods of some kind to judge all of humanity. Pass. He apparently had a hot immortal ex-wife that Kakashi would have to avoid, but he'd been dodging relationships for decades, so he should be fine.

The most astonishing thing he found was how weird and secretive someone who was never a ninja could be. Also something about turning people into birds.

All in all, it wasted the rest of his night.

~_Line Break_~

The next morning, Kakashi Ozpin, as he was considering naming himself before quickly rejecting it, found himself realizing that 85% of this 'Ozma's' day consisted of sitting in a large ticking room and doing paperwork. Naturally, Kakashi didn't appreciate an annoying steady noise pounding it's way into his head, and he took the elevator out of there.

Conveniently enough, and vaguely recalling something about magical girls, there was a secret floor for the elevator to go to, and Kakashi soon found himself staring at a strange tube that he was fairly sure was not helping the injured woman inside.

Kakashi noted that he had not yet practiced anything more than a few basic ninjutsu, and decided that he didn't particularly care. Sharingan eye or not, he knew the bare basics of first aid.

Well, that and he was a certified eye surgeon. Everyone in Konoha was, otherwise how would so many eye transplants work so well?

Either way, he used a small diagnostic jutsu on the woman, though instead of results he expected, she instead absorbed the chakra he used.

"Oh. That works for me." He muttered. A majority of medical ninjutsu was just learning how to feed someone enough chakra to heal themselves, and gifted patients like this woman could practically just be fed energy until they were better.

If it wasn't for the Kyuubi, Naruto could have been an excellent medic just for being able to feed as many people as much chakra as they could stand.

Kakashi used the most basic medical jutsu, the healing palm, and brought it to the woman's heart. His chakra was a bit more potent than the average ninja, so he could use a bit less than normal, but the woman slowly grew a few shades healthier and slowed her breathing with the little support he gave.

Kakashi used about half of his reserves to heal her up, though he hadn't been running completely full before he started, before she opened her eyes and shattered the open tube with a scream.

"Well, that's one way to wake up." Kakashi remarked dryly, brushing glass out of his sad, gravity obeying hair.

"O-Oz? Where are we?" The woman asked.

"Well young lady, we are currently underneath my auspicious academy." Kakashi declared cryptically, hoping that he didn't have to remember her name.

"Beacon? I'm, we're under Beacon?" She asked.

"Indeed. You were injured, but we recovered and brought you here to keep you away from your attackers."

Kakashi, it should be noted, was excellent at Poker, even without his mask.


	5. Chapter5

"The attackers... that **woman**!" The lady roared. "She did something, tried to take my powers!"

"And? Were they successful or not?" Kakashi asked. His question was genuine, but he made the question sound prodding as if he were just egging her to spill.

She conceded with a vicious grin. "Oh, they tried. But the powers of the Fall Maiden are _mine_. And I'm taking them back."

This apparently involved glowing, setting her eyes on fire, and floating twelve feet in the air. Once she screamed triumphantly for a rather headache inducing twenty seconds, she smirked victoriously before falling to the ground in a heap.

"That seemed more demonic than 'magic'" Kakashi decided monotonously, before nudging the unconscious woman.

She grunted softly in agitation, so Kakashi let her lay.

"Hmm. How can I best traumatize Glynda with this..." Kakashi thought, searching every nanosecond of his memory.

"Ah. Perfect."

~_Line Break_~

"What do you mean Amber is in the nurse's office?!" Glynda bellowed in true disorientated horror.

"Well she seemed injured, so I thought our school nurse could put her to rights." Kakashi said calmly and slowly, as if speaking to a child.

"Seemed? _Seemed? _**Seemed?!" **Glynda screamed. "She seemed to be fucking dying when she got here, and you and Ironwood stuck her in that, that _thing_ so that her soul would stay in place!"

Kakashi found that information somewhat interesting. "She seems to have gotten better." Said his mouth, which was expertly controlled so as not to smile at the agitation he caused.

Her bellow of inarticulate rage made that smile fight hard to display itself, but Kakashi had practice. The mask was for privacy and to avoid women, not a crutch for his facial expressions.

"Headmaster." The nurse interrupted. She seemed to have experience with Glynda, and ignored her rage to say her piece.

"Yes?"

"The patient is awake. She seems to have some minor aura exhaustion, but she should be fine in a few days at most. A couple of hours if she's lucky."

The nurse ducked back into the infirmary even as Glynda had a look of extreme shock and hope.

"Hmm. Maybe she was just a little under the weather?" Kakashi suggested.

Unfortunately, Glynda seemed to have already opened the door and was gaping at the previously grievously injured woman.

~_Line Break_~

Apparently his healing of a woman hidden in his basement was considered quite rude to the General of a neighboring country that had been working on some kind of device to transfer her soul to a young shoolgirl? If Kakashi were a lesser or less worldly man, he may have not been able to keep his stoic face at the griping of the old crippled guy who whined about weaponry and semi-immoral experimentation.

As it was, Kakashi had had to deal with Danzo when his wife finally underwent menopause, so he'd heard worse.

"Well, my apologies James, but she has made a full recovery, so we don't need to put her through crippling and specific death by a untested machine to preserve her abilities."

Ironwood seemed even more offended. "This was all your idea! I told her it'd be better to just kill the new woman, and you said it'd be harder to track her down than to work out how to stop her from getting the rest of the maidens' power!"

"That doesn't sound like me." Kakashi disagreed mildly. "Especially since our school nurse was able to get her fixed up in no time."

"I don't believe for one minute that the nurse fixed up Amber!" Glynda yelled at him, her hair disarrayed and falling into her face at the effort involved in her yelling.

"Oh? Then what? I fixed her up now, instead of before? Perhaps I wasn't capable of healing her until just this morning?"

There was a tone of agony in Glynda's voice as she replied. "I don't know, Oz. I just don't know. What is going on?"

Kakashi almost felt bad, but opsec existed for a reason. Time for improv. "The truth? I am starting to regain my prior abilities."

He wasn't, in fact whatever magic or aura was that this Ozpin had were completely inaccessible to him, except that a slight resistance stopped him from taking full damage from attacks. From what he'd read in that autobiography, Ozpin had been gradually losing his ability to use something he referred to as magic, supposedly a gift from these gods.

Kakashi had his own power descended from a god, and he figured Kaguya wasn't much to share.

"Really? That's wonderful news!" Ironwood cheered, almost smiling. "We can take the fight right to her!"

"Caution, James. I am unsure of how much power I have regained. Having it back after so long, I can't quite compare it to how it was the last time I fought her, and I lost at that time as well. I healed Amber both as a test to see how well I am doing, and because it is the right thing to do."

"And? How does it compare?" Glynda asked.

Kakashi considered this one honestly, ignoring his web of lies to compare his actual experience.

"Healing is often much more difficult than destruction, and Amber took my healing well enough that any practitioner wouldn't have had trouble. That being said, I feel quite close to full strength, though I have tired myself out a bit by using it so much in the past few days."

"Like with your coffee!" Glynda shouted, eyes wide in disbelief, shock, awe, and even a bit of annoyance.

Kakashi let himself grin finally, not noticing the way that his peers recoiled as if they'd seen something truly horrible.


	6. Chapter6

Of course, an experienced ninja, someone who has maintained a stable form of paranoia for his entire life minus about four years, would not be caught flat footed when something mildly unexpected comes up.

Kakashi sipped from his mug as Glynda barely held onto her composure while she looked over the vast amounts of paperwork that one of the sets of teenagers had procured for them.

Team RWBY, of which only one member was relevant to him, seemed to have been dragged (read: leapt into the fray) to a robbery of the ever-enigmatic 'Dust' from the docks. This had eventually resulted in four crashed Bullheads, a ruined dock, and 90% of the Dust still having still been stolen.

Glynda didn't seem impressed _at all_ with his suggestion that the damage had been because the only important one hadn't been there until halfway through the fight. She was even more irritated when she found that, to an extent, his view _could_ be interpreted as accurate, though turning any combat situation from having two people as defenders to having six was generally much better, particularly when they were all Huntsmen in training.

Nevertheless, she growled. "What should we do about this?!" she asked angrily.

"Ignore it? They're going to do this at least twice more, without a doubt. Honestly, we should be proud that they are so determined to do the right thing. At least they aren't slaughtering civilians or starting a gang war."

Glynda's mouth opened in what was very clearly an awed lack of understanding. "Why would they do either of those things? And how?!"

Kakashi blinked in his lack of understanding. "How? Glynda, you do know that it's very easy to start a gang war, right? It can be as easy as taking out one guy and leaving a little false evidence. Not to mention how easy it is to just walk up to one gang and tell them that another gang was insulting them."

"And how, exactly, do you know that, Ozpin?" Glynda asked, as if she didn't 'know' he was a reincarnated man who had technically existed for a few thousand years.

"People are testy." Kakashi replied, sipping from his mug. "Regardless, you'll find that Vale will have another dock by morning without understanding where it came from, and this problem will go away. On the bright side, they saved some of the Dust. Perhaps we need to give the students a lesson on prioritizing targets, or the recovery of assets."

Glynda numbly nodded and looked back atthe paperwork. "Well, I suppose we don't teach much tactics..." she mumbled.

"Anyway Glynda, I have to go. I could use a little break from this."

She scowled and turned to yell at him, only to find herself in an empty office.

"Damn it Ozpin. You haven't done anything to take a break _from_."

~_Line Break_~

Kakashi needed a new book series to read.

There was nothing wrong with Icha Icha, but he only had his favorite copy with him, as it seemed to be the only thing that had come with him in his dimensional trip, and not any of his backup seals or clothes.

It truly was a shame that he didn't still have the Sharingan. That thing had been fantastic for storing stuff. Nothing much of value was lost, as he hadn't been quite up to using it as his primary storage device before it had disappeared, and all shinobi knew not to over rely on something regardless.

But, one copy from a multiple volume series was not quite enough to keep him entertained, so Kakashi wandered through Vale in the direction of a book shop.

Tukson's Book Trade, the sign read. An advertisement described the shop as having 'Every book under the sun", so Kakashi wasn't too sure about it. Books were mostly kept indoors, after all.

Pushing through the door, he waved stoically at the man, presumably Tukson, and wandered around looking for a new series to invest in.

"Tch, like I could follow an adventure." he said dismissively at a brightly colored series with an eye catching character with a stupid face. "Those are always stupid, and the character is always overpowered and too stupid to know it."

Another series caught his eye before he resisted the urge to set it on fire. Leave the homosexual erotica for someone else, please and thank you. There was a huge collective of Academy drop outs that had seemed insistent that he and the schoolteacher should hook up. Something about an argument? He didn't try to remember conflicts unless they ended with death threats.

"Ninjas of Love?" he asked himself, deadpan.

The book was in his hand and opened up to the first chapter in moments. His curiosity could not be withheld.

A small chuckle. Then a guffaw. Finally Kakashi snapped the book closed in his hand, grabbed the series as a whole, and purchased them.

As he left, Tukson, unwilling to speak up when a prestigious and dangerous man happened to visit his cover job, not even when the man started laughing at porn, decided to close the shop and leave before it was too late. Whatever kind of creature Ozpin was, Tukson didn't think it was natural for books to disappear like that while the man flipped pages without touching them.

~_Line Break_~

Naruto and Sakura had been upset with him when he became Hokage and his first order of business had been to make his page flipping jutsu an S-Rank Forbidden Jutsu. Probably because they were both still technically genin, and he didn't write them off first.

"What's so special about you using chakra to turn the pages, anyway? Does it really deserve to be an S-Rank? Or forbidden?" They had asked.

Sasuke could tell. Mostly because of the eye thing, but even then.

See, it probably would be a C-rank jutsu, or even a D, if he were just using chakra to flip the pages. He could use chakra strings, just to show off that he had copied them at some point. But a book was a little too delicate for a basic C-rank.

Even then, Kakashi was sure that Naruto could duplicate the effect as a B-rank wind jutsu, if just for the control necessary. But you see, Kakashi wasn't a wind element. He had trained his wind affinity, sure, but just to add a little oomph to the ones he had copied. He would never be a wind user like Naruto, using pure elemental manipulation at a whim.

Well, not with wind. See, Kakashi was a lightning type. If there was a lightning jutsu, he could do it with a maximum of one hand sign, even the Lightning Dragon, which had 44. Kakashi had _mastered_ lightning manipulation. What's more, he had mastered it at 13, when he created the Chidori.

Now it's been a few decades since then, and Kakashi was never really a slacker. When a ninja gets good enough at one element, he starts to notice something. See, making a fire is easy. Stray lightning can make fire just by hitting something dry or flammable. Lightning also made a little wind when it struck, kind of a displacement of the air that had been there.

Kakashi was using Lightning manipulation that was so advanced that he was guiding the side effects of the electricity into turning the pages of his book for him. Silently, without hand signs, without an outward display of electricity being manifested, and without using more than a pittance of chakra.

For all intents and purposes, he was capable of using a lightning jutsu to create a wind jutsu that had almost no chakra in it. Of course, it was nearly impossible to sharpen it without adding some actual wind chakra into it, and it took a little concentration to pull off the thing, but there was just something infinitely entertaining about hitting a sensor with a 'totally natural' ball of wind from a distance.

Asuma had never forgiven him once he had discovered the trick.

Finally, Kakashi returned to Beacon, his new books slowly turning pages as he suppressed most of his laughter at some of the concepts written about.

Really, a ninja who couldn't perform eye surgery? That was taught in the first year of the Academy.


End file.
